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February Wrasslin' |OT| Observe THIS, Brother!

Toki767

Member
I've always said the brand split was dumb. Now every feud lasts like 4 months. They should have fired a lot of their talent and moved forward with a stronger roster.

A feud lasting 4 months isn't bad. It's only really bad because feuds involve them facing each other every week for 4 months.
 

Sephzilla

Member
I've always said the brand split was dumb. Now every feud lasts like 4 months. They should have fired a lot of their talent and moved forward with a stronger roster.

my alternative to the brand split is, admittedly, impossible.

-- Raw returns to 2 hours
-- Smackdown returns to 1 hour
-- Trim down the roster
-- US Title exclusive to Raw
-- Intercontinental Title exclusive to Smackdown
-- Cut down on the number of PPVs slightly

WWE's problem is that there is too much of their product out there right now.
 

Pikma

Banned
Most of the things that the brand split "fixed" were things that honestly could have been done without a brand split. It was mostly just booking issues. You could have had an "unofficial" brand split where you keep certain stars on one show or another and keep the midcard titles exclusive to each show, thus elevating them in the process. That way you get the best of both worlds - more exposure for the entire roster, titles aren't devalued as much, and you aren't entirely handcuffed if you need a wrestler from another show.
See, the brand split has given people like Naomi, Alexa, Nattie and even Carmella a chance they wouldn't have gotten before, yeah they could have given them that chance before but that was not going to happen because there was not enough time for everyone, Smackdown was a fucking televised house show before the brand split, now it's a show with it's own writing team which translates into opportunities for these women.

I'm sure if you asked people like Naomi, Nattie and even Becky if they are happy with the brand split they'd all say yes without a doubt, especially Naomi who has always been very vocal about the lack of opportunities and such on social media

Say whatever you want about your fantasy booked coulds and shoulds but it is a fact Smackdown has benefitted the division.
 

Bronx-Man

Banned
Two things:

1. If Miz isn't WWE Champ again by the end of the year, it will be a travesty.

2. It's honestly shocking how hard Smackdown's women division blows Raw's out of the water. You got 3-4 stories happening at the same time vs the Charlotte & Friends Show.
 

Mahonay

Banned
All the things that would have fixed booking and made shows like Smackdown better with out the brand split, are all the things that WWE never does on their own with out being forced to. Their deeply entrenched stubbornness is why someone at the company felt a massive shake up was the only option.
 

Mahonay

Banned
Two things:

1. If Miz isn't WWE Champ again by the end of the year, it will be a travesty.

2. It's honestly shocking how hard Smackdown's women division blows Raw's out of the water. You got 3-4 stories happening at the same time vs the Charlotte & Friends Show.
RAW has untalented writers and it shows. Smackdown got lucky and got the writer from NXT during it's high point.
I can safely assume about 90% of Smackdown's women's division would have absolutely nothing to do if the women were all on the one brand.
No shit. Impressively RAW still manages to be worse.
 

Sephzilla

Member
All the things that would have fixed booking and made shows like Smackdown better with out the brand split, are all the things that WWE never does on their own with out being forced to. Their deeply entrenched stubbornness is why someone at the company felt a massive shake up was the only option.

Yep, this.

Vince and company were probably way too stubborn to admit that there was a problem with the product at a core level, so someone basically disguised a big creative shake up with the words "brand split" so that it felt like less of a direct attack on Vince and the team.
 

Rockandrollclown

lookwhatyou'vedone
They just don't know how to book feuds to last that long anymore.

Well yeah. Nothing inherently wrong, but a 4 month wwe feud feels like a 5 year long feud with any other promotion because WWE has to go overkill on everything. They can't ever hold anything back for a bigger payoff down the line.
 

Cybit

FGC Waterboy
With that Rollins injury, there goes the Reigns turn. :(

If he had to go to Birmingham, that's because he needed to see Andrews, and that is basically the worst of signs. Going to assume it's a torn ACL or torn meniscus.
 
See, the brand split has given people like Naomi, Alexa, Nattie and even Carmella a chance they wouldn't have gotten before, yeah they could have given them that chance before but that was not going to happen because there was not enough time for everyone, Smackdown was a fucking televised house show before the brand split, now it's a show with it's own writing team which translates into opportunities for these women.

I'm sure if you asked people like Naomi, Nattie and even Becky if they are happy with the brand split they'd all say yes without a doubt, especially Naomi who has always been very vocal about the lack of opportunities and such on social media

They could have had a chance before but the issue is rather than fill time with matches and story, WWE writes in 5 minute long intros and 20 minute long promos. There is SO much filler that could have been used better via matches.

People like Carmella and Alexa would have been called up and used mid-card style versus forced main stories. The whole thing with Ellsworth is just AWFUL and part of the reason that's going is because the WWE is incapable of making people work through the roster.

They want every person to come up and immediately jump into some PPV worthy story.
 

Rhaknar

The Steam equivalent of the drunk friend who keeps offering to pay your tab all night.
what Rollins injury? was it Samoa Joe related? if so Joe's fucked, only one person can freely injure others, and that is, ironically Seth :3
 

Nekofrog

Banned
Wildly unsafe wrestler injured again? Time for the commission to revoke his pro wrestling license nation wide, he should not be sanctioned to fight anywhere in the country
 
what Rollins injury? was it Samoa Joe related? if so Joe's fucked, only one person can freely injure others, and that is, ironically Seth :3
3KrFxhg.gif


It looks like Rollins' twisting combined with Joe bringing him down for the choke made him land awkwardly on his knee.
 

Mahonay

Banned
what Rollins injury? was it Samoa Joe related? if so Joe's fucked, only one person can freely injure others, and that is, ironically Seth :3
Joe didn't do shit. Seth twisted his knee going down taking a rear naked chokehold from Joe. Seth turned the wrong way if you watch it.
 

Pikma

Banned
They could have had a chance before but the issue is rather than fill time with matches and story, WWE writes in 5 minute long intros and 20 minute long promos. There is SO much filler that could have been used better via matches.

People like Carmella and Alexa would have been called up and used mid-card style versus forced main stories. The whole thing with Ellsworth is just AWFUL and part of the reason that's going is because the WWE is incapable of making people work through the roster.

They want every person to come up and immediately jump into some PPV worthy story.
Yes but they didn't do it and would never do it, as Mahonay said they needed the brand split to force their hand
 

Bronx-Man

Banned
The brand split was a good idea. Raw and SmackDown were trash before it, now only Raw is still trash. That's success if i've ever seen it.
 
Well yeah. Nothing inherently wrong, but a 4 month wwe feud feels like a 5 year long feud with any other promotion because WWE has to go overkill on everything. They can't ever hold anything back for a bigger payoff down the line.
They need more guys who experience long drawn out feuds to write this stuff. Like why not have opponents pick their poison again? Why not have beat downs that inhibits the challenger to fight so they get someone else in their spots?
 

Sephzilla

Member
People like Naomi, Alexa, Nattie and even Carmella could have gotten plenty of exposure even with one unified roster if the creative team was smart enough to realize that not every single show every single night needs to be about the top-of-the-card wrestlers. NXT, even during its prime, didn't have Neville, Breeze, Zayn, or Enzo/Cass on the show every single week. They gave the midcard some space to have their own matches and stories and the result was that NXT as a whole was better off.

The brand split was more or less a band-aid for the real issue.
 

Kaladin

Member
People like Naomi, Alexa, Nattie and even Carmella could have gotten plenty of exposure even with one unified roster if the creative team was smart enough to realize that not every single show every single night needs to be about the top-of-the-card wrestlers.

NXT, even during its prime, didn't have Neville, Breeze, Zayn, or Enzo/Cass on the show every single week. They gave the midcard some space to have their own matches and stories and the result was that NXT as a whole was better off.

At least Smackdown realizes this and highlights all championships in main event matches occasionally.
 

Data West

coaches in the WNBA
I don't know the total number of people Joe and Seth injured, all I know is they each put one wrestler in retirement, the difference is one of those was a 55 year old part timer, and the other was 34 year old active wrestler.

And one of them got a pass for it while the other one was (and is) vilified.

Except people like Punk and Owens will tell you Joe is the most delicate guy to work with in the indies.
 

klonere

Banned
Two things:

1. If Miz isn't WWE Champ again by the end of the year, it will be a travesty.

2. It's honestly shocking how hard Smackdown's women division blows Raw's out of the water. You got 3-4 stories happening at the same time vs the Charlotte & Friends Show.

3. Big E singles push WHEN
 
People like Naomi, Alexa, Nattie and even Carmella could have gotten plenty of exposure even with one unified roster if the creative team was smart enough to realize that not every single show every single night needs to be about the top-of-the-card wrestlers.

NXT, even during its prime, didn't have Neville, Breeze, Zayn, or Enzo/Cass on the show every single week. They gave the midcard some space to have their own matches and stories and the result was that NXT as a whole was better off.

^^^^^^ Seph gets it

What's goign to make this all worse is NXT has a bunch of guys who could be on the main roster (Nak, Asuka, DIY, Revival, Roode, Aries, Almas, Hero) and it's just going to muddle up shit even more when they get brought up. Nevermind the core of guys from CWC/205 who could absolutely pad out an hour of TV ala Nitro.

I hate to say it but WWE literally needs to crash and burn to build itself back up. There is just far too much content they're going for.
 

Sephzilla

Member
The Tyson Kidd injury was a legitimate freak accident and there should be no blame there in general.

The Seth Rollins injury is mostly on Rollins. Joe was pretty clearly waiting for Seth to turn his back to Joe completely so that Joe could safely go for the takedown portion of the clutch, and if you look at the gif you'll notice that Joe goes for the takedown the moment Seth's back is turned completely. The problem is that Seth kept turning after Joe had committed to the takedown. The fault there is on Rollins.
 

Mahonay

Banned
Look at the way Joe dropped. It definitely had an impact on the result.
He always drops back when he does that doesn't he? I guess he should have adjusted to Seth not coming back with him. Miscommunication happened, that is obvious. Both fucked up probably.
 

klonere

Banned
This. I've always said, if Charlotte wasn't a Flair, she'd still be kicking rocks in developmental hell. Hell she would probably just be doing gymnastics still.

But she's the best female performer in the whole company and I say that as a Becky stan. Don't hate on the talent bud
 

Data West

coaches in the WNBA
I don't see how anyone can buy this guy as the face of the company anymore
i51kF3E.gif

Maybe like 3 years ago before he became the guy with a baby's face that does wacky things
 

Mahonay

Banned
I agree friend, but I can't see it happening anytime soon when the New Day are one of the biggest money makers for the company.
Other than Cena.

Is their merch still selling like hotcakes? I know The New Day is stale to most of us here, but I have don't really have a good sense of what their appeal is like currently to the average audience.
 

Sephzilla

Member
If Kurt Angle can become a main event champion despite being a goddamn comedy act, so can Big E. Same with Edge.

Angle had the benefit of being white, though
 

Caderfix

Member
He always drops back when he does that doesn't he? I guess he should have adjusted to Seth not coming back with him. Miscommunication happened, that is obvious. Both fucked up probably.

He prob didn't expect unsafe Seth to start twisting around in every direction


If he dropped less vertically (if that makes sense), there wouldn't be so much weight on the bad positioned knee. They were both just selling the move, accidents happen. I don't think any of them should be blamed for it.
 

Kaladin

Member
I just want to take a moment to point out how stacked CZW Best Of The Best looks:


*Michael Elgin.
*Fenix
*Ricochet
*Sami Callihan
*AR Fox
*Lio Rush
*Joey Janela
*Scorpio Sky
*Jasn Cade
*Jake Crist
*David Starr
*Anthony Henry
*Dezmond Xavier.
 

Mahonay

Banned
This. I've always said, if Charlotte wasn't a Flair, she'd still be kicking rocks in developmental hell. Hell she would probably just be doing gymnastics still.
WRONG

No shit her dad being Ric Flair made a difference. Doesn't change the fact she is insanely talented.
 
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